I haven’t blogged about Oregon Small Claims Court in a little while, and while not much has changed overall, here are a couple of updates:
1) It is very important to keep up with your Small Claims Court rules and procedures. Always read:
a) the Small Claims packet of information the Court gives you or that is on their website,
The ballot deadline is January 26, 2010. Please don’t mail your ballot at this point. Please find a drop box.
It has been said that people spend more time shopping for a TV than they do mulling over an election ballot. For crying out loud, in Oregon you can fill in your ballot while sitting in a comfy chair, drinking a beverage of choice, and mumbling or ranting to your heart’s content.
If you don’t vote you can’t complain. People around the world and through the centuries know that maintaining a democracy is a lifetime effort (and sometimes a death-defying one). You can’t vote once and expect to find yourself in Shangri-La (which may not be your cup of tea anyway). And voting once or twice a year is the minimum entrance requirement for keeping a country a free republic. It takes more, much more.
1) The Gallagher Law Library blog reminds us that an “Immigration Law Primer” is available at the Federal Judicial Center.
2) The basic print immigration law primer is Kurzban’s “Immigration Law Sourcebook.”
3) Speaking of immigration – and travel, Oregon public libraries have a new language database, Mango Languages. You can learn basic phrases, take a more intensive course, or use their translation service. It also has English as a Second Language (ESL) lessons. Check with your local library reference staff or website, e.g. Washington County and Multnomah County.
Oregon Judicial Department (OJD) Filing Fee website and fee calculator.
Oregon attorneys have additional information at the PLF website, including this memo that was revised January 12, 2010: “Understanding the New Filing Fee Requirements in Civil Cases (HB 2287) Effective: October 1, 2009”
Publisher slush piles have collapsed as much from too many lawyers (and people wanting to sue) as from the sheer volume of “slush.”
Here’s an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal:
The Death of the Slush Pile: Even in the Web era, getting in the door is tougher than ever,
Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2010, by Katherine Rosman:
The Oregon State Bar (OSB) has posted the 2010 Law Library Values Schedule. The website includes values for previous years as well:
“This schedule has been prepared by the Property Tax Division of the Department of Revenue, State of Oregon, in cooperation with the Oregon State Bar. Owners of Law Libraries should declare the schedule values to the assessor. No further reduction should be made for depreciation, shopwear, or obsolescence. Space prevents a listing of all books that might be found in a Law Library. The lack of a listing does not indicate that individual books, sets, or volumes should not be reported. Such unlisted books, sets, or volumes should be reported in Section Q values unless personal knowledge indicates greater actual value on some sets.” (Link to full schedule.)
Just as people ask if the Oregon SLRs are the “Supplemental” Local Rules or the “Supplementary” Local Rules, they also ask about those “Special” vs. those “Supplemental” Sessions. Here’s an article that may answer the question, in full or in part:
A lot is riding on February session: Senate president says it will be prelude to annual sessions ballot measure, by Peter Wong, Statesman Journal, January 17, 2010:
Excerpt: ‘Oregon lawmakers gave a test drive to an annual session two years ago, but Senate President Peter Courtney said the February session will be the one on which voters decide whether such sessions are permanent.
If you saw and were intrigued by Robert Ambrogi’s article in the OSB Bulletin (January 2010):
New and Gnarly: Will Lawyers Catch Google’s Wave?,
you might want to look at iLibrarian’s post that links to Mac Life’s post 20 Real World Uses for Google Wave.
(And just try saying judicial system without sounding inebriated, a point the wonderful comic Dana Carvey made more than a decade ago.)
I was listening to an Oregon legislative hearing the other day and a legislator commented (quite rightly) on how confusing government is to many people (legislators and the rest of us).
Those of us who live and breathe “government” spend a lot of time helping to educate the public. But we remember well a time when we were confused ourselves — because it is confusing!
It’s not easy to find a simple online explanation of the difference between Official and Unofficial sources of law. My explanation may fill in that gap – or not, depending on your specific question. (And a blog post this long can hardly be called “simple,” but such is life — and law.)
1) In a nutshell, an official source is a source that has been authorized by an official body, such as a court or a legislature. In Oregon, for example, we have the official statutes of Oregon, published in the Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS), by the Oregon Legislature, through Legislative Counsel. (This official statutory compilation should not be confused with Oregon Laws, which is the official session law compilation.)
2) We also have in Oregon, as do many states, an unofficial statutory compilation, the Oregon Revised Statutes Annotated, which is published by Thomson-Reuters (West Group).
Oregon Legal Research Blog